Any tips for dealing with neighbours’s dog please? Very boundary focussed.

[Peridot1]

We moved house a few months ago and ur new neighbours are lovely. We both have dogs. Theirs is a 3 year old male rescue. Ours is an almost 11 year old lab.

We’ve been walking with the dogs together occasionally. Theirs is a bit aggressive initially but calms down. Our just ignores him.

The only issue is that when we are in the garden and he is in their garden he barks and tears up and down the garden behind the hedge. It stresses them out and they call him back but he’s pretty focussed. Ours starts barking a bit but not too bad.

They’ve had a behaviourist out and are trying to sort it.

Would just like to know if anyone had any ideas of how best to handle it. He didn’t bark at the previous owners of our house apparently. They used to talk to him which might have helped. We do try to but he’s too busy tearing up and down.

Obviously coming into summer we will all be out in our gardens more so would hope he’d get to a stage where he doesn’t react. It’s not much fun for anyone at the moment.

Can he see you in the garden?

Yes he can. Both big gardens - our house was basically built in the garden of their house although before they lived in it. Our drive goes along their front garden and our back garden attaches to theirs.

Could you try (with neighbours consent) squirtng the dog with a water pistol? It does no harm but stops mine in his tracks if hes misbehaving..

I don’t think that would work as there is a hedge between us. Not sure I’m keen either to be honest. He’s a rescue and has had a rough start. Would like somehow to just get him to accept us.

I would ask them what the behaviourist has suggested - the behaviourist will be over the moon to have cooperative neighbours

I personally would not spray with water but take a different approach.

Is your dog calm with the other dog running up and down?
First thing would be to get your dog calm, that may be blocking their vision so they can not see the other dog it may be blocking off access to that part of the garden. Ensure your dog can be in the garden and not react to their dog (if possible)

Then with owner and behaviourists permission I would treat the neighbours dog. It may be a matter of just chucking treats over the fence so no mega interaction at all. The dog will hopefully start to sniff out the treats and become distracted with this rather than chasing. You may need to start this with your dog indoors to bring down th earousal to start with.

Over time you can increase the time between the treat throwing until dog sees you and falls into calm sniff mode.

Other thing to try is scent. If your neighbours are happy can you give them a blanket that your dog sleeps on. If the blanket can be put next to the neighbours dog when he eats and in his bed he will associate the smell of your dog with fun calm times.

This works really really well with settling in dogs into new households.

What breed is the neighbours dog?

Please don't go down the route of using an aversive like water pistols - you run the risk of either winding the dog up even more, or creating a negative association. So because the dog is sprayed when he sees you/your dog, he could then become fearful of you both.

I know some posters on here are big fans of water pistols/loud noises/pebbles in tin cans but they're really not advisable techniques and can cause more problems than they solve.

I like Polly's suggestions of either blocking the fence so neither of you can see each other, or swapping scents. It could also be a bit of frustration because he knows you and can't get to you!

You're right actually on second thoughts the water pistol would be a bad idea here. Glad some sensible people came along to correct that! Sorry.

@PollyRoulson he’s a German Shepherd. Gorgeous dog.

The treats thing might work. I think the behaviourist said he’s doing his job and to give him another job.

The layout is tricky - we are basically in an L shape around their garden and blocking vision would be really difficult. The house on their other side has builders and he ignores them completely. It’s just us.

I think we might just persevere on trying to get him used to us. And maybe get them to come over to ours a few times with the dog so he’s familiar with us all. And maybe book a session with the behaviourist for us all so that we are all on the same page.

They are really lovely and so is the dog. It’s not his fault at all. He’s just doing what he thins his job is I think.

@Sputnikle - no worries. I might try that on DH when he annoys me though,